Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ingrown nail correcting device which is adhesively bonded to the surface of an ingrown nail to correct bent portions of the ingrown nail.
The ingrown toenail is a disease that side edges of the toenail shell are bent so as to warp inward and gnaw into the toenail groove or side toenail profile, such that soft tissues of the toe are pressured, causing a pain. The ingrown toenail occurs, in many cases, particularly at outer side edges 2a, 2b of a toenail shell 2 of a big toe 1 as shown in FIG. 1. Whereas a toenail shell 2 as shown in FIG. 2(a) is the normal toenail, a lightly ingrown toenail is as shown in FIG. 2(b) in which the outer side edges 2a, 2b of the toenail shell 2 are bent, and a heavily ingrown toenail is as shown in FIG. 2(c) in which the outer side edges 2a, 2b of the toenail shell 2 are bent to such a larger extent that the toenail groove or side toenail profile is mechanically pressured, where the big toe 1 is intensely pressed when shoes are put on, causing an awful pain to be generated.
The factors that cause the ingrown nail include congenital factors due to heredity and a posterior factors due to improper measures such as press by footwear, to-the-quick cut, and the like. In particular, when a cut to the quick or the like has resulted in an infection with bacteria, there are some cases where an abnormal granulation is formed, developing into an profile onychia accompanied by a heavy pain.
One medical treatment for the ingrown nail is to remove the ingrown portion by a surgical operation. However, this operation is rather complicated and has disadvantages in that the operation causes the toenail shell to be narrowed in width, and that the operation is impossible to execute when a bacteria infection has been involved.
As a treatment without the aid of operations, a flat, rectangular plate-like member 4 having a length generally equal to the width of the toenail shell 2 is made from a material such as metal or synthetic resin, as shown in FIG. 3, and a strong bio-adhesive agent is applied to the rear side of the plate-like member 4. First, as shown in FIG. 3(a), the plate-like member 4 is placed on the surface of the toenail shell 2, and bonded at its central portion. Next, as shown in FIG. 3(b), one edge 4a of the plate-like member 4, while being held by a metal bar 5, is adhesively bonded, and pressed until the adhesive agent is dried. Then, the plate-like member 4 is bonded to the other edge 4b over the entire width of the toenail shell 2. If the toenail is left in such a state, restoring force acts in the directions of arrows in FIG. 3(c) by the rigidity of the metal material or synthetic resin material, so that the bent portions of the ingrown toenail will be corrected so as to become flat, gradually.
However, with the use of the prior-art plate-like member 4 of a metal material or synthetic resin material as described above, the restoring force for correcting the ingrown toenail is indeed effective within the range of distortion of the metal material or synthetic resin material enabled by its elastic deformation, but decreases gradually due to a creeping phenomenon or the like beyond the range of distortion. Also, in order to retain enough rigidity to correct the ingrown nail, there arises a need of increasing the thickness of the plate-like member 4, where thickening the plate-like member 4 would conversely cause the adhesive agent to lack in strength such that the plate-like member 4 would be peeled off, disadvantageously. Thus, as a current situation, the aforementioned plate-like member 4 is not widely used.